I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a weather strip to be attached along a center pillar of a motor vehicle, and to a method for manufacturing the same.
II. Description of the Related Art
As shown in FIG. 1, a weather strip assembly 12 is attached along a center pillar 10 of a vehicle provided with sashless doors. As shown in FIG. 2, the weather strip assembly 12 is composed of a first weather strip 12A, adapted to seal a rear edge of a front door windows pane 14A, and a second weather strip 12B adapted to seal a front edge of a rear door window pane 14B. Upper ends of the first and second weather strips 12A and 12B are first joined to a roof side weather strip 16 (FIG. 1) that is attached along an edge of the roof of the vehicle. Then, the first and second weather strips 12A and 12B are attached along the front and rear parts of the center pillar 10, respectively. The first and second weather strips 12A and 12B are, in one example, made of sponge rubber in their entirety, and, in another example, made of sponge rubber except for their base portions, that will be attached to the center pillar 10, which are made of solid rubber.
Weather strip assemblies 12, composed of first and second weather strips 12A and 12B between which a pillar molding, have been frequently used.
Furthermore, in order to conform the configuration of the center pillar to that of a door opening of a side body of the vehicle, the width of the center pillar gradually increases downwardly. However, where the first and second weather strips 12A and 12B are formed integrally by extrusion, the cross-section of the extruded weather strip is uniform so that the extruded weather strip cannot be conformed to the center pillar of which the width gradually increases downwardly.
The weather strip for a center pillar can be manufactured by forming the first weather strip 12A, the second weather strip 12B and the pillar molding 18 integrally by molding, as set forth in Japanese Utility Model application laid-open No. Hei 3-5625, for example. With this method, the molded weather strip can be conformed to a center pillar whose width gradually changes downwardly. However, cores for forming tubular portions of the weather strip must be removed after molding thus lowering work efficiency.
As shown in FIG. 2, in order to improve shape-retention, the weather strips 12A and 12B are generally provided with internal bridges 20 which respectively extend across the tubular portions thereof. These bridges 20, however, are very difficult to form during molding. Therefore, bridges 20 have been formed, as shown in FIG. 3, by inserting fillers 26 serving as bridges into the tubular portions of the weather strips 12A and 12B through slit 24 adapted to remove the cores after molding. This insertion is also difficult, inefficient and costly.